BA Season 3: 40 and 41 'The Cure'
by The Barracuda
Summary: Xanatos promises a cure for the mutates, but is the price too high?
1. Default Chapter

  
  
40 - "The Cure: Part 1"  
Originally Written: January 25th, 2001  
  
Author's Note: Yeah, I know, this title has been used before, on numerous occasions, but,  
nothing else seemed to fit as perfectly.  
  
May 2nd, 2001  
"I can't believe you even considered asking him such a thing?!" cried Elisa, as she threw  
her jacket to the bedspread, and slumped beside it. "You of all people know how Derek  
feels about that man!"  
  
"I felt it may be time," Goliath answered soberly, his tone sedate and a perfect  
contradiction to Elisa's angered ranting, "I felt he may welcome the chance to release his  
pain, and go on with his life."  
  
A day later, after Goliath's journey to the depths of the Labyrinth, and his heated  
discussion with Talon, Derek Maza, the elected leader of the mutates, the lavender giant  
had at last informed his wife of what had transpired. Her shortened shift had been  
completed, and she rushed home only to find the bedroom emptied of her daughter's  
presence, and Goliath waiting for her. He had fumbled with how to tackle the precarious  
subject with his wife, and decided to wait until a later time to tell her. That time was  
now, almost exactly twenty four hours afterwards.  
  
Elisa knew Goliath was lingering for her response, yet she never looked back, instead  
electing to cross a leg and slouch into a more comfortable position. A heavy sigh  
escaped, and within the warmed air lay a spite which Goliath clearly picked up on. "You  
didn't actually expect him to say yes, did you?" she asked, finally directing her eyes to  
his.  
  
"I expected the response I was given, but not from Maggie."  
  
"Unbelievable. She of all people...ready to forgive the man who turned her into a  
bat-winged mutate." Elisa slowly shook her head in disbelief, her eyes rife with a  
confusion of feelings, focusing on her sister-in-law.  
  
"To hang on to a hatred for so long is tiring," Goliath spoke up, his low rumble  
effectively catching his wife's attention, "I know that very well. She perhaps has  
accepted her fate, and wants nothing more than to free herself of a heavy burden. To  
bring peace to her troubled soul."  
  
"It isn't that simple, Goliath." Elisa snapped, somewhat unintentionally. "Her life was  
taken, and twisted, and practically destroyed. You can't let go of anger that easily. In  
your own words, you know that better than anyone."  
  
"But I have released what has plagued me. Demona, Thailog, the death of my clan. I  
have liberated myself, and I feel as if a tremendous weight has been lifted from my  
shoulders." Goliath took his place near her on the bed, grasping upon her hand, and  
feeling the light striations of her skin and the veins beneath. "That is what Maggie  
wants."  
  
Elisa watched intently the massive lavender talons graze across her skin, and she smiled,  
as the magical touch of her mate was soothing what anger remained trapped inside of her.   
But she immediately snatched her hand away. "Don't. I hate when you do that. Those  
damn gargoyle charms of yours." Elisa threw herself into a standing position, and  
continued pacing upon the carpeted surface, escaping from Goliath's crooked smirk. "I  
want to be angry at that man."  
  
"Why?"  
  
Elisa stopped and looked wide-eyed to Goliath, her answer frozen in the depths of her  
soul. Perhaps she had no reply to give. "You want to know something funny?" she  
squeaked. "I don't even know sometimes."  
  
"You and Derek both, are hanging onto an anger that shouldn't exist anymore. You still  
continue to clutch at this pain, unwilling to let go. It's as if you are afraid to allow  
yourself to see him as more than the scheming billionaire villain he once was, and  
attempt to blind yourself to who he is now."  
  
"It hurts, Goliath," Elisa's voice trembled, reliving the pain associated with even the  
mere mention of Xanatos' name, "it hurts to know my brother is unable to spend time  
with me, just because of how he looks. It's the same with you." She slowly made her  
way to Goliath's seated place, and dropped to her knees, resting against her husband's  
mammoth thigh. "You were born this way, you're a gargoyle, and it's only because of  
human prejudice and an inability to understand and see what beauty lies within, that we  
can't be together out in public. But Derek was human, he was with me, and our family.   
We went to restaurants, movies, the beach on weekends...and all that was taken away  
by..."  
  
"A grave mistake on Xanatos' part. A mistake he is trying desperately to amend."   
Goliath pulled Elisa into the breadth of his chest, and she willingly accepted his pleasant  
embrace. "Everything he has done, everything he has become, he is a changed man. I  
would not be defending him if I did not believe this to be true. Maybe it's time for you  
both, to heed your own words, to try and see what lies beneath the expensive suit and that  
damnable grin. A soul in turmoil, much like that of Demona, who you seemed to have  
forgiven. Why is she so different than Xanatos?"  
  
Elisa remained silent, both annoyed at her husband's seemingly flawless logic, and the  
fact she was fighting a battle waged inside of her. She would have never pictured herself  
to be the one coming to David Xanatos and extending her hand in friendship. She had  
now discovered why she wanted to hate him, for she wanted that hatred to protect her, to  
keep her guard up, to defend her family if he ever chose to return to what he once was.   
But the passage of time, five long years, a small portion of that spent under his roof, and  
the billionaire had lived true to his word. A wedding, a honeymoon, a home, a beautiful,  
healthy daughter, all because of David Xanatos. "Maybe..." she whispered. "But it's  
just...so hard..."  
  
"I know," Goliath assented to her heartfelt cries, "I know."  
  
"Forgiveness is a task only reserved for the strong, Mrs. Maza," called a voice from  
nowhere, "but you indeed possess such strength to overcome your fears and misgivings  
about my employer."  
  
Both Goliath and Elisa looked up to see Owen Burnett, standing in the open door to their  
room, hands behind his back and standing as if a steel rod had replaced his spine.   
Goliath cocked a brow ridge and Elisa scowled.  
  
"Thanks for knocking." she huffed, propping herself up in her husband's lap, and  
narrowing a gaze of chocolate to the majordomo's position.  
  
"I apologize for trespassing, but I never would have intruded upon your privacy if this  
were not important." he explained coldly, placing himself in the middle of the room.  
  
"What is it, Owen?" Goliath asked of the disguised Fay.  
  
"I could not help in overhearing your dialogue when approaching your bedroom doors,  
and thought you would want to know of another...conversation held between Mr. Xanatos  
and Talon last night."  
  
"Derek was here?!" Elisa shot up, and perched herself onto the carpet, a quick, cat-like  
stride taking her to Owen's side. "Why?! What the hell did he have to say to Xanatos?"  
  
"It seems both he and Claw took offense to Goliath's suggestion that the mutates forgive  
him."  
  
At this, Goliath groaned, and raked a taloned hand across his face, and now possibly  
regretting his decision to even bring this simple idea to the mutates.  
  
"He seemed to be quite on edge, and actually threatened Mr. Xanatos' life, stating if he  
ever came into contact with him or any of his family, he would kill him."  
  
"Oh Jesus, Derek." Elisa sighed.  
  
"I never wanted it to come to this, Elisa," Goliath replied, quickly nearing her side, and  
placing both his hands to her shoulders, "but this only strengthens my own argument.   
That Derek is becoming consumed by his own anger, to such a degree that he is willing  
to kill because of it."  
  
"Oh god. You're right, Goliath." Elisa backed into his chest, and caressed both her  
hands to her husband's powerful claws. "Maybe I should talk to him. Maybe it's time..."  
  
"Come, Elisa, let's make our way to the Labyrinth." said Goliath, as he grasped onto her  
hand and directed her to the balcony doors. Elisa nodded and followed behind, as Owen  
watched on. "Perhaps you can speak with him, and calm your brother enough to guide  
the journey towards true peace. Both with those around him, and in his own heart." He  
pulled Elisa into his arms, and pressed her tightly to his mighty chest, securing her for the  
flight towards the nearest entrance to her brother's home, and his self-imposed prison.  
  
Owen Burnett peered upon the silhouette of a gargoyle in flight, growing increasingly  
smaller and fading into the veil of thin clouds, and the stars above. He pulled his  
cellphone from his suit pocket and dialed a particular number, waiting for a voice to  
answer at the other end. "Yes, they have left, and are heading for the Labyrinth.   
Everything is going as planned, Mr. Xanatos."  
  
****************************************  
  
Goliath's wings fluttered slightly, as he followed behind the slender detective to the main  
doors of the Labyrinth. She stalked the sewer tunnels with instinct, knowing this path  
from heart and memory, having taken this trail many times to visit her younger brother.   
They appeared shortly before the massive doors leading into the inner sanctum of the  
mutates' home, and Elisa wasted no time in punching in her code to open the doors and  
slipping through the sliding barriers of steel.  
  
"Derek?!" she called, an anger inherent in her voice. "Where are you, furball?!" She  
climbed up onto the platform and headed for the main living quarters, her pace hurried  
and deliberate, her thin eyes bold, resistive. "Derek?!!"  
  
"Elisa?" Maggie had appeared from an adjoining room, her golden gaze settling on the  
raven haired detective and her lavender husband. "What's wrong?"  
  
"Where's Derek?" she asked, nearing her sister-in-law, her very body language tensed,  
and letting anyone who may lay eyes on her, that she was not in the best of moods.  
  
"Right here, sis..." Talon edged up behind his wife, and cocked a head to his older sister.   
He then set his sights upon Goliath, and his smile fell somewhat. "Goliath."  
  
"What the hell is wrong with you?!" Elisa bellowed, poking a few slender fingers into  
Talon's tunic.  
  
"What are you talking about?"  
  
"You don't remember threatening Xanatos' life last night?"  
  
Derek walked past his wife and stood face to face with Elisa. "Oh, I do remember. And  
I don't apologize for anything I said."  
  
"This is getting out of hand now. You actually would consider killing another man."  
  
"Xanatos isn't a man. He's a soulless monster."  
  
"Not anymore."  
  
Derek clenched his teeth, releasing a hot breath through his fangs. "First Goliath, then  
Maggie...and now you. I thought you would be strong enough to resist that bastard's  
little magic spells. The way he keeps getting to everyone of my family, and somehow  
becoming friends with them."  
  
"He deserves praise for what he's done."  
  
"This is what he's done!!" Talon roared, clutching a hand to his chest, and pointing to  
Maggie behind him. "And you defend him!"  
  
"I suffered too, at Xanatos' hands. We all did. But maybe, Derek, it's time to forgive."  
  
"NEVER!!!" he bellowed, loud enough to call attention to his rants from both Claw and  
Sharon, and with enough malice to elicit a defensive stance from Goliath. Even Maggie  
moved back, her entire body trembling with fear, as Sharon came to her side.  
  
Elisa opened her eyes to her brother's angry mannerisms, his eyes glowing, his ears  
flattened back behind his head, as if a wild animal preparing for the attack. "Look at  
you! Look at what you've become."  
  
"Xanatos did this!! Xanatos did this all!!" Talon swept to the other mutates' sides,  
delivering all eyes to what had become of four simple, innocent humans. "Look at us,  
Elisa. Remember what he did, and then try to defend him."  
  
Elisa let loose a small chuckle, as she shook her head. She paced about the room they  
were gathered in, eventually forming a perfect circle, and coming back to Derek's  
position. "You remember our talks, Derek. Late at night, when we were young. How  
we would talk about our lives, and our future. How you said you wanted to fly planes  
and helicopters, and I wanted to follow in dad's footsteps. How I told you I wanted  
someday to have a family. Children." Elisa's eyes met her brother's own feline slits, and  
she bored into him, displaying what power and determination lay inside the glistening  
pools of chocolate. "I have three words for you, furball. Trinity. Hope. Maza."  
  
Talon drew back, upon the mention of his niece's name.  
  
"Without Xanatos to provide the best doctors, and the best medical care, and a home for  
her to grow up in safety...I shudder to think what could have happened to my baby girl.   
That innocent, beautiful girl who has a real chance at a real life...because of David  
Xanatos."  
  
"And because of David Xanatos, there will be no cousins for her to play with." Derek  
fought back, his own pain resonating on every single word. "Because of what he did to  
us, we can never have children."  
  
"That's not true." A small voice cried out behind Talon, and he turned to find Maggie  
approaching him, a timid gait to catch his hand in her own fur-covered paw. "We both  
know that pregnancy is a reality, as Dr. Goldblum told us. We are capable of having a  
child."  
  
"A child who would be covered in fur, and have two wings growing from it's back. A  
freak, a monster, just like us."  
  
"Is that how you think of Trinity?" she asked of him.  
  
Talon finally realized the extent of his ill-chosen words, that almost described his niece  
in perfect clarity in the words of the bigots and racists who would rather see her dead. A  
small baby girl who, despite her unique appearance, was more beautiful to him than any  
other child he had ever seen. "N-No...of course not..."  
  
"She has wings, a tail, spikes, claws, but she is still so beautiful, so precious. We could  
still have a family, and even if they turned out like us, we would still love them, care for  
them, read them stories, sing them to sleep when they get cranky..."  
  
"Derek, I know it hurts," Elisa cut in, "I know you go every day, carrying this pain inside  
of you. I do that too. So does Goliath. So have the rest of us. But to be given the  
chance to release this pain that's slowly eating away at you, is something you should  
really consider."  
  
"No..." Derek cried softly, his voice barely above a hoarse whisper. "Never. As long as I  
have breath in my lungs, he will never have my forgiveness."  
  
Elisa's features fell, as her brother's words assured an eerie finality to the entire  
conversation. She released her hands from around his arm, and backed away. "I'm sorry  
to hear that. I'm sorry you wish to live with this self-imposed torment. I'm sorry to hear  
my brother is truly dead, and only Talon remains."  
  
"You can thank Xanatos for that...detective Maza."  
  
"Derek!" Maggie called out, as brother and sister squared off in a war of angered stares.   
"She's your sister."  
  
"I'm not so sure anymore. Someone who would side with the man who stole my very  
humanity, is no one I would care to call sister." He turned back to Elisa, held in  
Goliath's strong arms. "I think you should leave. Now."  
  
"You should listen to her," warned Goliath, his grating threat unnerving all gathered  
there, "she only has your best interests at heart. And we both know she is rarely ever  
wrong."  
  
"I thought that once too."  
  
"If you would have listened to her six years ago, you would still be human."  
  
Talon growled and lunged forwards, his fur bristling with a seething anger. "Cheap shot,  
Goliath..."  
  
"But true none the less. She has always wanted only for you to be happy, and safe. It has  
not changed." His hands tightened about Elisa's frame, and he lowered his head to her  
level. "I think it best we leave, Elisa. We cannot do anymore here."  
  
"On the contrary," a voice called out and every mutate, gargoyle and human turned to see  
Xanatos emerging through a tunnel into the room, "I hoped you would be witness to my  
greatest triumph."  
  
"XANATOS!!!" Talon bellowed, upon seeing what filled his heart with malice and rage.   
He snapped into a flying leap, his own claws ready for the kill. But Goliath was there to  
stop him, holding the mutate at bay. "How'd you get in here?!!"  
  
"Thank you, Goliath." Xanatos stepped closer, seeing Talon forcibly restrained by  
Goliath. "I came through when Goliath and Elisa entered, and I do apologize for my  
transgression. I am well aware of our last words, Mr. Maza, but I cannot effectively cure  
your condition without having you in my presence."  
  
Talon ceased his struggling against the lavender giant's grip of steel, the words he  
thought may be a hoax, yet still holding his attention to the billionaire. "What?"  
  
"A...cure?" Maggie whispered.  
  
"Yes, Mrs. Maza. A cure." Xanatos echoed her words, as he watched the other mutates  
peer upon each other with wide eyes, filled with both hope and skepticism at the words  
they had so hoped to hear.  
  
"You said that before, rich man!" Talon yelled from Goliath's arms. "And it was a lie!"  
  
"Not this time, Derek."  
  
"Maybe you should elaborate before my brother rips your head from your body." Elisa  
drawled, sending a cocked eyebrow and the famous Maza grin his way.  
  
"Of course, detective. After years of searching, I stumbled upon a spell, buried within an  
old book I recently purchased from a small company dealing in ancient tomes. A spell of  
energy transference, which just may suit our needs." Xanatos walked around the length  
of the room, deliberately taking his time, and unintentionally incensing both Talon and  
Claw's temperaments. "It seems the transference also doubles as a purification spell. A  
large fragment of pure life energy taken from a healthful host will purge the mutated  
cells and leave your bodies in their original state. You will be as you once  
were...human."  
  
"You're lying..." Talon snarled.  
  
"No...I am not. This spell is real, and I believe it has a very high chance of success."  
  
"Are you sure? Is this real?" Maggie came forward, standing mere inches from Xanatos.   
"You're not lying?"  
  
"I give you my word, Mrs. Maza. And David Xanatos never breaks his word."  
  
"And who is to be the host?" Elisa asked. "Who will give up all this energy?"  
  
"Me, of course. The spell requires a healthy specimen. And my genes are of the highest  
quality and pedigree." Xanatos smirked, causing Elisa to simply shake her head.  
  
"I'd rather die than take anything else from you, bastard!!" Talon screeched. "I'd rather  
stay a monster than have you as my 'savior'!"  
  
"And what about the rest of us?" Maggie snapped back to her husband, with Sharon and  
Claw nearing her side. "We deserve to have the chance at a normal life, even if the cure  
comes from David Xanatos. Don't you see, Derek? He wants to help us. He wants to  
change. Why can't you open your stubborn eyes and accept that!!"  
  
"No!! It's another trick! It's always another trick!!" Talon grasped onto Goliath's arm,  
sending a streak of pure energy through the lavender giant's body. Electricity surged  
through Goliath's every nerve ending, inflaming his muscles and flesh, and the gargoyle  
was thrown back away from the panther mutate. Elisa rushed to her husband's aid as  
Talon charged forward, towards Xanatos. He pushed his wife aside and grabbed the  
collar on Xanatos' suit, lifting the billionaire off his feet. "I won't let you hurt any of us  
again, Xanatos!"  
  
"I'm sorry, but you have no choice in the matter, because the spell has already been cast,  
and needs only something to guide the energy transference. And I believe this will do..."   
He pulled a small device from his pocket, and gave Talon a sight of his gleaming eyes  
before pressing the small machine to his chest, adhering to his suit. "I hope in time you  
will find the ability to forgive me, Derek, but if not, this will at least set you free from  
what I imposed upon you. I would have hoped to cure Fang as well, but he made his  
choice long ago. Now, all the spell needs...is the trigger word." The billionaire's eyes  
grew as hard as the steel surrounding him, and Talon and Xanatos were lost in a world of  
their own, made of anger, and torment, in which one had caused immeasurable suffering,  
and one had bore the pain for his mistake. And now one choice would be made, to make  
things right at long last. "Redemption."  
  
With his final words uttered, the room lit up, as the purest white light burst from  
Xanatos' chest, flowing through the small device, and hitting Talon square in his torso.   
The panther mutate was struck point blank by a massive surge of energy, and he was sent  
sprawling to the floor, and collided with the other feline mutates. Soon, all four were in  
a heap on the tiled floor, enveloped in a spherical shield of energy.  
  
Elisa and Goliath could only watch from their position, the mutates writhing in agony, as  
the energy permeated every cell in their body, and boiled their very blood. Maggie  
screamed in pain, clutching to Talon's body. Sharon curled into a fetal position, and  
Claw tore into the cement ground with his talons. Xanatos fell to his knees, screaming  
his anguish to all corners of the entire Labyrinth, as the energy was drained from his  
body, and continuously flowed into the four mutates across from him.  
  
Talon forced open his eyes, and fought through the incessant pain to see his own hand  
held before his eyes. The raven fur fell away from his skin, leaving the light chocolate  
brown of his African ancestry. His muzzle pushed back in, and the fangs he once had  
grown so used to, had reverted to human canines. His wings shriveled and were  
forcefully pulled back into his body. Through it all, he noticed his wife below him, and a  
glorious white skin slowly being revealed as her golden pelt disappeared.  
  
The energy was dying away, and as Xanatos' own body grew weak and frail, he found he  
no longer possessed the strength to even hold himself up. He met the cold floor with a  
sickening thud, and his last sight was of the four humans near him, before slowly fading  
to black.  
  
The energy died away, leaving a waft of steam from each body to curl into the room, and  
dissipate slowly upon contact with the ceiling. Talon was the first to stir, groggily  
pulling himself from the floor, and blinking his eyes to restore the sight. He noticed  
movement brushing aside his body, and he looked down into the eyes of a young woman,  
with long blond hair, and glowing ivory skin. "M-Maggie?"  
  
The woman cocked her head, and responded to the name called out to her by the young  
dark-skinned man staring down on her. "Derek?"  
  
"Oh my god...it worked...it worked!!" He snatched Maggie into his arms, and reveled in  
the soft skin of the woman he loved, almost laughing out loud in the fact he realized just  
how much he missed the feeling of her soft fur hide. "We're human!!"  
  
"Wha?..." Sharon woke next, and found her frosted skin had returned to it's natural  
color. She latched on to the couple and squeezed tight, as they beheld the sight of the  
restored Asian woman. "We're human! Oh god...Claw?!" She realized just who was  
missing, and whirled around, only to find a stocky white male, with short hair of a  
flaming orange tint. "Claw?" She reached out for him, and upon touching his skin, he  
jerked and snapped his gaze to Sharon.  
  
His mouth was left wide open, and he stared intently to the trio of restored humans. His  
entire body trembled, perhaps from the excitement of being human once more, and a  
hidden fear of ever being cured. "...hu...man..." he squeaked, the first words spoken in  
six years.  
  
"Claw?" Sharon gasped, surprised he wasn't a mute by the effects of the mutagen, but  
only by choice. "You spoke..."  
  
"...sss-sharrron..." His voice was untested, weak from disuse, and he pitched forwards,  
into Sharon's awaiting arms.  
  
She met the large, muscular man with her smaller body, and stole her arms around his  
massive frame. "It's okay...we're okay now." She looked down on him, and a handsome  
countenance fell within her eyes, a face to match the gentle soul she had come to treasure  
and love. "We're all okay."  
  
"I'll say." Derek agreed cheerfully, brushing a hand past his ear, and the short bristle of  
his ebony hair. "Maggie, I never knew you were..."  
  
"What?" she answered in a mirthful cry. "So beautiful?"  
  
"White."  
  
She flashed a grin and playfully slapped him on the arm, then threw herself into his  
embrace, delving into his warm, human body. Her eyes were teared, as the sweet liquid  
of her utmost joy cascaded down her cheeks, and through the blurred vision, she caught  
Elisa and Goliath staring in disbelief. "Well, sis," she called to Elisa, "how do I look?"  
  
"A-Amazing..." Elisa stuttered out, rising in Goliath's arms, and slowly making her way  
to her sister-in-law's side. "You guys look fantastic!!"  
  
Derek wrapped around her, and gazed down to her with his now human eyes, a cinnamon  
swirl so much like her own. "I am treating you to lunch in the city, big sis." he laughed  
to her.  
  
"With what? You haven't had a job for six years." she teased, throwing a punch to his  
arm.  
  
He laughed back, and hugged his big sister with all the strength he could summon.   
"Thank you. I'm so sorry for everything I said. I'm so sorry..."  
  
"I know. You were angry. But it's over. You can start over. All of you." She rose up  
and cupped each hand to Derek's cheeks, forcing his eyes on hers. "Starting with  
Xanatos."  
  
"Xanatos...I...I..." He suddenly remembered the billionaire's whole part in this spell, and  
the entire group turned to where he had last been seen, and saw only a lavender shape  
huddling over an indistinct mass. "Goliath?"  
  
The gargoyle turned with sad eyes to the Labyrinth dwellers, and a grim cast shrouded his  
noble features. "I think...he may be dying..." he said simply, and sorrowfully.  
  
The others rushed to the billionaire's side, with Derek intentionally following behind,  
and Maggie gasped at the sight. David Xanatos had been drained of his very life, the  
energy which had sustained him, and now only a withered shell was left. His skin was  
pale, almost a solemn gray. He looked as if he had lost nearly seventy pounds in a  
terrifying instant, his expensive designer suit hanging from bones seeming to pierce  
through the sickly hide. His eyes were deep set and closed, fixed amidst darkened  
patches of dying skin.  
  
"Mr. Xanatos..." Maggie wheezed, seeing death firsthand before her young eyes. "Is  
he?"  
  
Elisa crept two fingers to the side of his neck, feeling for any sign of life. A small gasp  
escaped from her lips, when she found a weak pulse. "He's still alive. But, it doesn't  
look like for long."  
  
"We need to get him to a hospital," Goliath interjected, "immediately."  
  
"That will not be necessary, Goliath." The group turned to see Owen Burnett, appearing  
from the same tunnel Xanatos had used. "I was fully prepared for this. It's surprising  
that he actually persevered through the spell's effects." Owen leaned down and ran his  
hand over Xanatos' neck, and swathed lightly across his forehead. "It seems I  
underestimated his strength and his will to survive."  
  
"You knew about this?" Elisa asked incredulously. "And you actually let him do this?"  
  
"Mr. Xanatos does what he pleases. I am not his keeper. And besides, it seems the spell  
was a total success, and Mr. Xanatos is still alive. Now, if you please, Goliath, I have  
doctors Pierce and Weathers standing by at the Eyrie building. Could you please  
transport him back with us? I suggest your brother and his companions come as well.   
They all should receive full medical examinations to check for any anomalous  
side-effects from the spell. I have the limousine waiting outside. Time is of the  
essence." The majordomo slipped the cellphone from his suit and headed away from the  
group, leaving Goliath to tenderly lift Xanatos into his arms and follow behind.  
  
Elisa gestured to the others to accompany her as she made her way through the tunnel.   
Maggie pulled Derek along, and Sharon guided Claw as she curled around his muscular  
arm. They left behind their home, having dwelled here for the past six years, and headed  
into the darkness, their collective thoughts all centered on the dying billionaire laying  
limp in Goliath's arms.  
  
****************************************  
  
"Okay, Trish, let's get an I.V. in him and start taking blood samples." Dr. Pierce shouted  
orders to his colleague as they rushed down the hallway of the Eyrie's medical wing, with  
David Xanatos in the stretcher. "We have no time to lose." The two doctors rolled the  
billionaire into the examination lab, and pushed him to the nearest bed. With a quick  
tug, they lifted the frail body onto the starched sheets, and continued to plug machine  
after machine, and cord after cord into this awaiting body.  
  
Having followed behind was Fox, now near the room's edge, and watching her husband  
become nothing more than the extension of the cold hand of technology. Alexander  
clutched to her leg, the tears no longer held at bay, and being forced to witness his  
father's very aura fade from his rare magical senses.  
  
Goliath remained in the hall, with the gathered clan, Elisa, and the restored mutates.   
They lingered near the doorway and peered through the window, as the doctors  
frantically raced about the room, draining the fluid from Xanatos' body, in order to find  
what could possibly cure him.  
  
The restored human quartet had been given older clothes to wear, and were still finding  
their own bodies almost alien to them. Discovering the feeling of bare skin, and sunken  
human faces. Maggie stayed latched to her husband, and Sharon was busy whispering in  
Claw's ear, attempting to coax him to speak, to hear his voice once more. Yet he stayed  
silent, and found himself hanging his head, shying away from any contact, save Sharon.  
  
"Derek?!!" A frantic voice echoed down the corridor, and the entire clan found Diane  
and Peter Maza came screeching around the corner, and set their sights on their son. "Oh  
god...it's true. You're human!!"  
  
Derek rose from his seat and ran into the awaiting arms of his parents, and burying  
himself in their massive bearhug. "Hey, mom, dad. So, what do you think?"  
  
"You look beautiful." Diane answered, grazing her soft hands to his face.  
  
"And what about me?" They all turned to see Maggie waving to them, wearing a pair of  
worn jeans and an oversized sweater, loaned to her from Elisa. "How do you like my  
new appearance?"  
  
"Oh, Maggie, you look wonderful as well." Diane rushed to her and seized her  
daughter-in-law in another hug, squeezing the breath from her body. The entire Maza  
family reunited in love and friendship, with the clan watching on.  
  
All except Goliath, whose eyes could not be torn from the bedridden billionaire, and his  
grieving wife. He crept into the room, and a lavender hand brushed across Fox's  
shoulder. "He will be all right." he assured her. "I have never met any human, besides  
Elisa, with as much will and determination to live as David Xanatos."  
  
Fox leaned in to his hand, finding the warmth flowing through him inviting, and pulled it  
closer to her face. Her skin was cold, clammy, as if she was dying as well. "I hope so."  
she rasped, spilling tears of sorrow over Goliath's lavender skin. "I can't lose him now.   
Not now."  
  
"You won't, Fox. We'll find a way."  
  
****************************************  
  
May 3rd, 2001  
"Any change?" asked Goliath, having immediately after sunset, rushed to the Eyrie's  
medical wing, and inquiring upon his comrade's condition.  
  
Dr. Pierce, having slumped onto the examination table, a victim of much needed  
slumber, languidly rose from his chair, and rubbed his brow. "Nothing." he answered,  
his voice abraded, due to lack of moisture. "He's slowly declining in health, and I can't  
tell why."  
  
Goliath approached the billionaire's bedside, and gazed down upon the sickly man. His  
skin was as pallid as the white sheets which covered his feeble body, and his laggard  
breathing was aided by a respirator.  
  
"Physically, there's nothing wrong with him, except for the fact he's malnourished. But  
even with constant feeding intravenously, it isn't helping at all. He's still losing weight  
and strength...he hasn't even regained consciousness yet. I don't know if he ever will.   
It's as if the very energy was torn from him. Whatever that spell was...it was a doozy."  
  
"Indeed." Goliath replied. "But he cured the others. How do they fare?"  
  
"Human. Every single one of them." Dr. Pierce forced a smile, for the brighter side of  
his patient's ailment, had remedied the mutates' condition. "They are perfectly healthy  
human beings now. Without even a trace of the mutagen. Dr. Goldblum gave them all  
clean bills of health. Except..."  
  
"For?"  
  
"This...this spell, could only be masking any lingering remnants of mutagen in their  
bodies, that our scans missed. If it ever were to...wear off..."  
  
"Would they revert?"  
  
"I can't answer that." Dr. Pierce sighed. "But the funny thing is, they still have traces of  
unusually large amounts of, well, electric current flowing through them. They may still  
possess the ability to form electrical shocks from time to time, though substantially  
reduced in power. But if they ever get mugged, they have a built in taser." He chuckled  
beneath his breath, causing a smile to at last form on Goliath's etched facade as well.  
  
"Hopefully, they now have their entire lives ahead of them, and are free. I wish them  
well. Have they...have they been here to visit?"  
  
"Uh...no."  
  
"Why?" asked a voice from the side of the room. "Why would any of them take time to  
visit the man who cursed them?" It was Fox, as she slowly encroached on her husband's  
side, taking the chair and placing herself into the plastic seat.  
  
"Fox..." Goliath started, "they have all been through a lot, and need time to acclimate to  
their new situation. They do care for him."  
  
"Maybe some of them."  
  
"Derek will come around. He can finally deal with the pain he has carried, now that he is  
human."  
  
"Maybe...Goliath? Dr. Pierce? Can I...be alone with him for a while?"  
  
"Of course. I'll be up in the castle if you need me."  
  
"And I'll be in the lab, studying his blood samples." Dr. Pierce replied. "Maybe  
something I've missed will turn up."  
  
They both left Fox there, sitting silently beside her dying husband. She crossed her arms  
and leaned near him, her lower lip trembling with her resounding pain she wished no one  
to witness.  
  
****************************************  
  
"So, what are you guys going to do first?" asked Elisa, perched on her bed, and watching  
her brother and sister-in-law trying on clothes that once could never fit them. The Mazas  
had saved all of Derek's old clothing, stored away in hopes he would need them again.  
  
"Well, I'm going to go to the best restaurant in Manhattan," Derek replied, pulling out a  
favored sweater, received from the police academy, "and get the biggest, juiciest steak  
they can fry up."  
  
"And I'm going on a shopping spree," Maggie cheered, fiddling with her dress in front of  
the full length mirror, "now that I have my...figure back."  
  
"Damn straight, kitten." replied Derek wryly, as he crept up behind his wife and ran his  
hands over the lower part of her back.  
  
"Whoa!!" she screamed in pleasure, as she felt herself being thrown into her husband's  
arms, and the couple twirled around the carpeting, a dance of joy and well-being, having  
perhaps freed themselves from years of pain and anguish.  
  
Elisa smiled, and watched her baby daughter beside her clap and cheer, held in Delilah's  
arms. The young clone watched with fascination, a couple whom she had never met, yet  
knew with every beat of her heart. She had been on patrol the past night with Shadow,  
and only made it back before dawn's light to Wyvern's cornices, to see a strange group of  
humans waiting on her return. As the light stole upon the horizon, and trapped her in  
stone, she only heard the voice of Maggie calling out to her, and wishing her sweet  
dreams.  
  
She awakened to them once more, and found a recollection of what only old pictures had  
shown her of Derek's human appearance. They were reunited with their clone friend, she  
who had shared their lives underneath the streets, and above the clouds. And now, the  
young gargess followed them everywhere, filling her eyes with their every move and  
action, as they reclaimed their former lives.  
  
Yet something caught Elisa's attention now as she watched her clone, her daughter, a  
nagging feeling in the back of her skull, a sharpened sense, and the skills of a detective  
telling her that something lay beneath Delilah's show of support for the restored humans.  
  
Turning back to her brother, her bright smile faded slightly, and she asked him of their  
companions, "Derek? Where's Sharon and Claw?"  
  
"They're in another room, down the hall," he answered, digging back into the large  
cardboard box and discovering anew his wardrobe long forgotten, "Sharon wanted some  
privacy. He's...he's not taking being human so well."  
  
"Why not?" replied Delilah. "I thought he would happy to be human again."  
  
"So did I. But..." he paused, directing his eyes to the clone, and attempting to form  
words that would accurately describe his friend's emotional state. "He's always hid from  
us his past, and as long as I've known him, has never uttered a single word. Except  
yesterday, when we were cured."  
  
"Why?"  
  
"I don't know, Dee. Perhaps the trauma of being turned into a mutate was too hard on  
him, and he decided to seal himself away, from a lot of contact with others."  
  
Elisa started shaking her head. "No," she muttered, "there's something else. The three  
of you were able to adjust and almost accept what you had become. Claw must have  
experienced something different from the rest of you, and maybe it was too horrible for  
him to face, or even speak about it. Last night, I saw not happiness to be human, only a  
revulsion, a fear..."  
  
"Of being human?" Maggie asked. "But he wanted to be cured as much as I did..."  
  
"Maybe..."  
  
****************************************  
  
"Claw?" Sharon whispered to him, coming to a rest near his side.  
  
The large human had placed himself on the edge of the bed in this spare room, and had  
retreated inwards in both body and spirit. His muscular form had been barely covered by  
a tight shirt and jeans, and he continued rubbing his hands about his short red hair. He  
blinked in a slow and steady pace, and his eyes bored into the floor beneath him. And  
even Sharon's soft tone could not rescue this gentle giant from his position.  
  
"Claw?" she tried again, desperate to help, and wanting so to hear his voice again.   
"Please talk to me. It's all right now, we're human. The nightmare's over. We can have  
full lives...together."  
  
That last word sent a chill down the larger human's spine, and he at last stirred, rising  
from the bed and approaching the window facing into the city's center. His eyes were  
possessed of a dark green tinge, and having been released from the mutagen's effects,  
were once again left to shine with a human intelligence and grace. Yet his eyes held only  
sadness, pain, anger, hatred, a confusion of conflicting emotions, and to even stare into  
his dark gaze brought a sadness to his friend, now standing by his side.  
  
"Claw? What is it? What's wrong? Whatever it is, you can tell me...you can tell me  
anything. Claw?" She sighed and turned away, receiving no response.  
  
"...thomas..." a quiet whisper ripped through the room, and Sharon whirled around to the  
sound of a voice that had barely taken breath for six long years. "...my name...is  
Thomas..."  
  
Sharon swelled into a smile. "A wonderful name."  
  
"...not so wonderful..." he answered back, never tearing his eyes from the city beyond the  
glass.  
  
"What's wrong, Cl...Thomas?" She guided her hands to his, and a softened feminine  
skin glided about his own hands and fingers. "You know you can tell me anything. I  
want to help you. I want to...be with you...now that we have a chance to live our lives  
back in the real world."  
  
The former mutate forcefully ripped his hands away, and swiveled around, walking away  
from the smaller woman in a faltering tread. "...no...you don't..."  
  
"That's not true!" she yelled to him, attempting to cut off his escape. "I care for you.   
We've been through so much in the last few years." Her hands found their way to the  
sides of his face, grazing over his rough features, and tracing the shape of his imposed  
scowl.  
  
But he caught them and pushed her away from him. "...no..." A simple answer which  
tore into Sharon's heart, and the large man headed towards the door. "...you don't want  
to be...with a murderer..." He left, disappearing into a maze of stone corridors, and  
medieval armaments.  
  
Sharon sank to the bed, unable to hold herself on her own feet. She now knew why he  
had never shared his past with her, yet she refused to believe that beating beneath his  
chest and inside the man she had fallen for, was the heart of a murderer.  
  
  
To be continued... 


	2. 41 - "The Cure: Part 2"

  
  
41 - "The Cure: Part 2"  
Originally RE-Written: February 15th, 2001  
  
Author's Note 1: This is a re-write of the original, because my disk got corrupted and I lost this story to the unforgiving demons of technology's deepest pits of Hell...those little bastards. So it will differ slightly from what I originally wrote, (not that you'll ever know of course). I'm just extremely pissed off at the moment I am writing this, and it may not be exactly what I wanted or intended. *Sniff*...it was so damn perfect!! Oh well, I was able to save the first seven pages and a lot still resides within my memory. Remember, don't just back up your work, but back it up VERY OFTEN...  
  
Author's Note 2: I'm working on a FAQ post, so if there's any questions you wish to ask about my series, I just may include it along with the answer.  
  
May 4th, 2001  
The silence was deafening to Fox Xanatos. An absence of any sound, save for the machines feeding life to her dying husband. She had remained beside him still, slouched into her chair, and laying halfway onto his bed, his right hand entrenched firmly within her grasp. Her eyes had grown clouded, the radiance had faded away, as her anguished spirit withered within her breast. She had sent her son away to be with the others, unwilling to allow her only child to witness the slow demise of his father, his very hero.  
  
This small room rarely had visitors, save for the doctors, and Goliath and Elisa. The rest of the clan feared their presence would be an intrusion, and instead decided to send their wishes through the Maza couple. In truth, she wanted no one here, to see her husband in what could be his final days. He had carried himself so high, so proud, she wanted that image to reside in all those who knew him, instead of this frail being wearing David Xanatos' face.  
  
The tears came again, flowing over her arms and pooling onto the white sheets, yet she never noticed. Lost in a world where so many of her friends had been, had experienced, and never had she felt so scared, so small. She suddenly missed her father even more than before, recalling fond memories of crawling into his lap, and having his strong arms wrap around her tiny form, and lull her to sleep whenever she was afraid. Like David had done so many times in their marriage. This dying man was her life now, and he carried within him, a piece of her soul.  
  
"Fox?"  
  
Startled by the sound behind her, the billionairess jerked up and around, to find Diane Maza standing in the door to the room. She quickly wiped what tears had dripped down her bleached golden skin, a sign of weakness that plagued her the past two days, and she wanted none to witness her grief.  
  
"You don't have to hide your pain from me, Fox." Diane whispered softly. "I know how you feel. We've all been forced to watch as loved ones lay before us, desperately grasping onto their lives."  
  
Fox turned away, and back to her husband. "It's harder than you think. Having to look upon the most powerful man you know, become a shell of his former self. Laying unconscious in some hospital bed, and knowing...that you could have prevented it."  
  
Diane's eyes widened upon this revelation, and quickly approached Fox's backside. "You knew?" She pulled another chair to the bedside, and through the filtered moonlight streaming past the window's blinds, found the cold hands of the woman before her. "You knew he was going to use that spell to cure my son and the others?"  
  
Fox trembled and her mouth opened to form words that had become trapped in her throat. "He came to me a few days before..." she started, her voice wavering with emotion, "he told me he had found a spell to cure them. But it may take his life. He was so sure he would be okay. He promised he would...be okay..."  
  
"And you let him go through with this? To risk his life to cure them? To perhaps leave behind a wife and child..."  
  
"It was an obsession with him," she continued, "he wanted...needed to cure them. He had to...wipe everything he had done away, and start over. He couldn't live with the fact he stole the very humanity from Derek and the others." She fell forward, her own body failing her, and Diane pressed the younger woman to her chest, feeling the choked sobs tremble through her. "He had to cure them...or he would be forever damned."  
  
"But was this spell, this cure, worth the risk? He may die..."  
  
"You still don't understand, do you?" She rose up and her emerald eyes lay upon the confusion still apparent in Diane's features. "Don't you see, Diane? To save his soul, he had to sacrifice his life."  
  
"And you can live with this?"  
  
"He's free now, his soul is no longer tainted with the past. If he dies tonight, he's finally free..." She ultimately broke down, upon the very words of her chance of dying. She collapsed into Diane Maza's arms, a limp body and tortured essence, and the elder woman pulled Fox into her own lap, and curled her arms around her, hoping to soothe some of the pain.  
  
She glanced over the shocking red locks, to see Xanatos laying there silently, and surprisingly found no hatred, but only pity. Remorse for the dying, remorse for the man who kept his promise made a year ago, and cured her son.  
  
****************************************  
  
May 7th  
Almost a week had passed now, and David Xanatos' condition was deteriorating rapidly. He had yet to regain consciousness, if only to say his final farewells to his wife and son. But for now, his room was purposely left in the shroud of darkness by Fox, concealing from view, the sharp certainty of his impending demise. She had been torn from her husband's side by Goliath, and taken to the castle to force at least some food into her body. Her diet had reduced dramatically, and her health had dropped to a dangerous level in just a short span of days, therefore Goliath took it upon himself to act as her strength, a task of ensuring her own physical and mental state would not falter anymore than it already had.  
  
Dr. Pierce was sealed in the next room, delving into lab reports and toxin screenings, trying anything to keep the billionaire alive. Even the smallest change in Xanatos' condition would alert the machines and call the doctor to his side, so he found some semblance of peace to discover the elusive cure to his ailment.  
  
The unfeeling rasp of the humming machines, a twisted rhythm fill what silence lay, continued on without breaking pace. Unnoticed from the doctor a room away, a swath of shadows loomed over Xanatos' body, completely covering him in their entirety. It was Claw, peering down upon the man who cursed him to be what almost any normal human would consider a monstrosity, and the fact this supposed villain he had grown to detest, now seemed as small and feeble as a child.  
  
"...so weak..." he whispered, his voice still untested. "...so fragile. You couldn't even fight back...if I pulled the plug on these machines...and watched the life drain from you even quicker than before. Or...if I used a pillow to smother your face, and hear your pulse slowly die away." The large man leaned over the billionaire, mere inches from his face, almost daring him to release himself from the coma. "How easy would it be to take your life as you once casually took mine."  
  
"But you won't."  
  
Claw turned to see Sharon in the doorway, an angel of beauty dressed in a tight, blue ribbed shirt and a pair of jeans. "How can you be so sure?" he asked.  
  
"Because you are not a murderer."  
  
"You're wrong..." He whirled back to Xanatos, and filled his eyes with what looked to be a corpse, hooked to every conceivable machine in the field of medical technology. "Thanks to this man, I have already dirtied my hands with innocent blood."  
  
Sharon was almost shocked at both his words and the fact he spoke with such elegance, and a pain once displayed through sophisticated sign language, now resting within every abrasive utterance. She stepped forwards, timid footfalls across the tiled surface, reaching the breadth of his back. "Tell me. Please tell me what you've kept within you for so long."  
  
"No." His voice became hard. "I care for you too much. I don't want you to think of me that way."  
  
"My opinion of you won't change. No matter what you tell me."  
  
Claw instantly snapped around, to glare into Sharon's face. His eyes pierced into her, almost seeming to glow with a madness and ferocity, and perhaps for the first time in her life, she feared this gentle giant. "I still remember his screams as he died. I still remember the smell of his blood. I still remember seeing the four massive gashes down the entire length of his chest, and the crimson puddle growing bigger beneath his limp body..."  
  
"What are you saying?"  
  
"I'm saying, Miss Nomura, that I killed an innocent man, and reveled in it."  
  
Sharon looked away, frozen in place, acutely aware of the sound of her own teeth chattering, resounding in the back of her head.  
  
"Now you are the one who's silent," scoffed Claw, "it's difficult to even form words, isn't it? Living with the knowledge that you took an innocent life." Claw finally released his eyes from Sharon and paced slowly around the room.  
  
"W-What happened?" she asked of him, gathering the courage to speak once more. "When...when did you..."  
  
"Kill someone?" Claw replied, a biting sarcasm intertwined with his spoken torment. "When did I extinguish a life? Is that what you want to hear? Fine." He slumped into the chair beside Xanatos' bed, a balled fist forcefully slapping into the other palm, a repetitive motion, a compulsive act, and an external display of what was tearing at him inside. "It was six years ago. I had volunteered for medical testing. It paid well and I needed the money to make rent. But little did I know, I would be injected with the mutagen that turned me into a mutate, a monster unpossessed of a soul. The initial stages were painful, and I could barely tell what was happening to me. They kept me in a cage, under guard constantly. I was acting on pure instinct, pure rage, and when they tried to feed me, I used the chance to escape. A guard tried to stop me, and I lept at him, ripping the gun from his hand, and then slashed at him with talons I even forgot I had. The blood sprayed everywhere, I became covered in it, and I couldn't escape from the stench. I just kept slashing and slashing, until the man became limp in my arms, and I dropped him to the ground. He was dead. I had killed him." Claw lurched and violently shook in his seat. "They led me back to my cell. I never even fought back, I was...too stunned. I fell to my knees inside the cage and collapsed into a heap, staring at the blood on my claws. I killed that man...and I never spoke again..."  
  
"Oh god. Oh Claw..." Sharon gasped, her own formed expectations of why he consciously chose to keep himself silent, instantly shattering upon hearing the truth. "But it wasn't your fault. It was the mutagen. You had gone through a transformation that messed with your genes and even your mind. There's no way you could have been responsible for that man's death."  
  
"I was!!" he screamed, rising from the chair and towering over the smaller Asian woman. "I ripped that man apart with my bare hands! Whatever was human in me died that day, the very moment when his life slipped away from that mangled body! I don't deserve to be human anymore! I should be the monster that I truly am!"  
  
"No!" Sharon protested. "You are sweet, caring, brave...the guard's death was an accident. Nothing but an accident, caused by Sevarius and his experimentation on you. I know you, I know the man who, if he could have stopped himself from taking an innocent life, he would have."  
  
"I am a killer!!" he cried out, his green eyes concealed behind the shimmering azure of his tears. "A heartless killer..."  
  
"...no...you...are not..." a weakened voice called out to the couple, and they whirled around to see Xanatos looking at them, with dead eyes and an emancipated smirk. "...your pain...is...because of me..."  
  
"Oh god, Mr. Xanatos..." Sharon lept to the billionaire's side and helped him with the respirator tube he had pulled from his throat to speak. "You're awake..."  
  
"...it seems...I have beaten...the odds...once more..." he wheezed, his red-rimmed eyes just barely on the verge of rolling back into his head. "...Claw...it's not...your fault..."  
  
Claw slowly walked up to the bed, standing behind Sharon, watching as Xanatos struggled to remain conscious, perhaps even fighting back the annihilative force of death itself.  
  
"...everything...you went through...is because...of me..." His words were labored, speaking through an arid throat and weak lungs. "...you were...right, before...I was...responsible...for you transformation...into a mutate..."  
  
Claw swiftly brushed Sharon aside and plunged his head to Xanatos', sticking his face directly to his. "I don't hate you for making me into a monster, Xanatos," he snapped, "I hate you for making me into a murderer."  
  
"...you did not...kill that guard...I did..." Xanatos replied. "...if it were not...for me...no one need have died...in the process of the...mutate experiments...your blame is...misplaced..."  
  
"I killed him!!"  
  
"...no...you did not...his death...lays on...my shoulders...and no one else's..."  
  
"...I killed him..." Claw broke down in sobs, as Sharon curled up behind. "It was me...I wasn't strong enough to stop myself. I wasn't strong enough..."  
  
"...not true...you adapted...to your situation...and protected those...you cared for...you are stronger...than I ever could be..." Xanatos gasped and gulped for air, as Sharon attempted to restrain him and replace the respirator, but the billionaire fought against her, battling for his chance to speak. "...I only hope...you can now...live you life...the way it should have been...I don't ask for forgiveness...just that you...free your heart...of the pain you have carried...for so long...if you and the...others thrive and go on with your lives...than I can truly...release myself...as well...I can rest...tired...I'm...so tired..."  
  
"Mr. Xanatos? Mr. Xanatos?!" Sharon shrieked as his eyelids fluttered and he lapsed back into his deep catalepsy, lost to their waking world. "David!"  
  
"It's all right, Sharon," said Dr. Pierce, standing behind them, "he's relapsed, gone back into the coma. In fact, I'm a little surprised he even came out of it. He must have always wanted to speak his mind to you, Claw, Sharon, and he willed himself from the deep sleep, for just that purpose."  
  
"Can't you do anything?"  
  
"No." he answered directly. "He's beyond medical science. There's nothing I can do anymore. Within the week, he'll be dead." The doctor leaned on the edge of the bed, staring down onto the resting billionaire. "I noticed the change in his heart monitor, and when coming out to check, found the three of you talking. It seemed to be a heated discussion, and so I let it continue. If he's going to die, then he should be able to make his last peace with those he wronged. Every man deserves at least that..."  
  
Claw said nothing, knowing the doctor's statement was directed to him, and him alone.  
  
"Isn't there anything?" Sharon asked once more.  
  
"It's now just a matter of time. Unless you can find another spell." he said half-jokingly, knowing full well the healing power of magic, having been witness to the efforts to save Goliath's life a few months ago. The ultimate strength and mysticism of sorcery was now a very real fact, and he could not, even with more than twenty years of medical experience and dependence on scientific methods, forget what he had seen. A life brought back by an enchantment spoken, and a battle fought on another plane of existence. "We should probably let him sleep now," the doctor started, "he needs every ounce of strength left to survive."  
  
Sharon glided her soft hand across the withered hide of Xanatos' forehead, feeling not a human, yet the parched crag of dying skin, losing it's color, it's vitality. "Sleep well, Mr. Xanatos. Your long battle is finally over." She turned to Claw, whom had stayed silent throughout the conversation. "We should go, Claw." she said, gracing a hand upon his broad shoulder, and slipping slowly past him.  
  
Claw remained firm, and hunched over the ailing billionaire with rueful eyes of forest green. This man, this human, was perhaps more like him than he ever would admit. Both hiding their pain beneath a silent facade, and both slowly dying of a frail soul. "Rest, Mr. Xanatos," he whispered hoarsely, with Sharon watching on, "if you die tonight...than die in peace."  
  
"Claw...Thomas." Sharon called out to him, extending a hand to beckon him to her side. "We should go...now."  
  
Claw rose up, and a cleansing breath was released into the room, becoming lost in the cold hymn of the machines. He approached Sharon, and tenderly grasped her slender hand, marveling at her lithe fingers slipping between his own. They disappeared from the office, hands firmly locked together, and left Dr. Pierce to replace the respirator tube into Xanatos, to conserve what strength was left in his dying patient, to allow him the time to hold on for what could be the last days of his life.  
  
****************************************  
  
May 9th  
"That is your official stand?"  
  
"I can't do anymore," Dr. Pierce solemnly nodded his consent to the question asked of him, "I can't cure a victim of magic. All I can do now is keep him hooked to those machines, and extend his life two weeks, maybe three. But frankly, that's no way for a man to die." He slumped into the visitor's chair at the far end of the desk, and brushed a hand through his long, graying hair. "A man like David Xanatos shouldn't pass away as some half machine, he should be allowed his dignity even in his final days. He should die as he lived...a proud man."  
  
"Thank you, doctor," replied Owen Burnett, facing the doctor in his own chair, fixing his hands together by touching each bleached fingertip to it's counterpart, "you and doctor Weathers have done exemplary work, as always. I thank you both for your efforts." Owen turned away slightly, as if expecting this conversation was to end.  
  
Dr. Pierce lingered in his chair, staring in disbelief at the majordomo. "Soooo..." he drawled, leaning forwards in his chair, sliding both hands onto the desk's wooden, lacquered surface, "what do you plan on doing?"  
  
Owen swiveled back, almost an idiosyncratic expression forming on his etched marble facade. "What do you mean?"  
  
"You have that little...Puck guy inside of you somewhere, hiding beneath that expensive suit, don't you?!" he snapped, suppressing a swelling anger in knowing this disguised fay always knew everything before anyone else. "Can't you help him?"  
  
Owen simply stared back at him with a raised brow. "If you wish, you may join me in the library tomorrow night, Dr. Pierce, after sunset. I shall address the clan in the next step."  
  
"You have a plan?"  
  
Owen turned his chair completely around, forcing the doctor to stare headlong into a field of treated, ebony leather. "Tomorrow night, doctor."  
  
****************************************  
  
May 10th  
The library had filled with the entire clan, torn from their roosts upon the setting of the sun, and the onset of nightfall. Fox had been purposely left out of tonight's gathering, still with her husband below them, and perchance the caller of this meeting did not want her to hear what he may have to say, her emotional state weak, and easily fractured. The restored humans all took the largest couch, whispering within their own circle, uneasy of this assembly called so abruptly.  
  
Goliath held Elisa in his lap in a facing recliner, and the raven haired detective stayed mostly silent, a burning impression within the wall of her stomach. Her police instincts were acting on their own, and informing her of an anxiety wafting through this massive chamber, with an relentless shiver inflaming the nerves in her spine.  
  
All the voices, though entirely quiet, faded away completely as Owen Burnett entered into the library and closed the doors behind him. He walked with a prevalent tread, no emotion presented forth to the humans and gargoyles. "Thank you all for coming..." he started, eliciting a growl from Elisa with his amiable disposition.  
  
"Get to the point, Owen." she snarled, impatient and already fearing the direction this conversation would take.  
  
"Of course, detective. My reason for calling you all here is to discuss Mr. Xanatos' condition. He is dying, due to the fact his life energy, a portion of his very soul, was taken from him, and given to the mutates. Without it, he will not survive to the end of the week." Owen clicked his passionless gaze to the restored humans. "You all possess a portion of that energy in question, and perhaps Mr. Xanatos' only chance at life, will be to give back that which he bestowed to you, to cure your mutated forms."  
  
Maggie's coloration quickly paled, her throat becoming dry. "But, if we give back that energy," she squeaked, "will we become mutates again?"  
  
Owen paused to collect himself. "There is a forty five percent chance that you will return to your mutated state."  
  
Maggie immediately buried herself in Derek's chest, clutching to his shirt with her tiny hands, muffling her wails into the breadth of his torso. Sharon fell against Claw, and the large man pulled her close with his arms.  
  
"We can't ask them to do this!!" Elisa screamed, only being contained from tearing at Owen by her husband's powerful grip. "There's got to be another way!"  
  
"No, detective," Owen replied impassively, "there is not. Alexander is neither old enough or powerful enough to help him, and Demona cannot affect a successful attempt either. Mr. Xanatos needs the energy from all four of your friends, and will not survive with any less."  
  
"But it isn't fair!!" she breathed, falling back against Goliath's body, watching her sister-in-law cry into Derek's arms, her dream finally realized, and then cruelly taken away in a twist of fate. "It's not fair..."  
  
"No, it's not...but how can we refuse?" came a smothered call, an infinitely pleasurable tone destroyed with a pain of losing what she had so wanted. "How can we let a man die just to stay human? Just for our selfish wants?" It was Maggie, peering with dead eyes to the majordomo.  
  
Derek instantly pushed her off of him, and tore himself from the couch. "I am finally human, we all are!!" he yelled with a fury, directing his angered voice to all those present. "How can you even think of going back to what we were?!" he asked his wife in a ferocious tone, sounding more like Talon than Derek Maza.  
  
"And how can we let a man die?"  
  
"He's not a man, and I won't let him take away what we have finally gained after so long!!" he screamed.  
  
"Derek...he's dying..."  
  
He crouched low, and forced his face just inches from his wife's, sending his hot breaths across her dusty blond locks. "Let him die." He then removed himself from Maggie's astonished gape, and swiftly rammed through the library doors, the wooden barriers nearly being torn from their hinges in the backlash.  
  
Stunned was perhaps the only word to describe what Maggie had been reduced to, or even fear at her husband's declaration of pain, of hatred towards the man who first lay upon him the blight of a disfigured form. Her body, numbed from the errant shock of destiny's cruel jest, slumped against the stuffing of the couch, and she tried to hide herself away from the eyes which were directed to her, eyes of pity.  
  
Elisa sadly shook her head. "Oh, Derek..."  
  
****************************************  
  
May 12th  
"It's been two days. Aren't you even going to go see him?"  
  
Derek looked up from his laptop computer, and towards the image of his wife standing in the doorway of their borrowed guestroom. "Why?" was the only answer to slip through hardened lips.  
  
"He's dying, and it's now because of you."  
  
"He owed us!" Derek snapped back. "And now he's paid his debt!! No one forced him to use that spell to cure us. He did it because he felt guilty, and he got what he deserved..." He returned his focus to his computer once more, and effectively turning his back on the woman he loved.  
  
Maggie slowly walked towards him, and reached around his shoulder to slam closed the computer screen, and interrupt Derek's mission to delve into something and forget what choice had been placed upon his shoulders. "How dare you." she growled, the voice of a lioness coursing from her tongue. "He's dying, and you try to forget that he even exists. How can you be so heartless to a man who made a mistake so many years ago?"  
  
Derek rose up, towering over the smaller woman. "It was no mistake! He meant to do this, to turn us into freaks. And if he dies, it won't be on my shoulders."  
  
"You enjoy seeing him like this. You're taking some kind of sick satisfaction in all of this." Maggie groaned and released a disheartening laugh. "That's what this is all really about...you finally want to win, don't you?  
  
Derek started shaking his head. "No...it...it isn't like that..."  
  
Maggie sighed, brushing away the dirty blond strands of her hair, recently cut and styled. A gift from Elisa, in a day spent in a hair salon, pampered and coifed, and washing away six years of sewer grime. "I know you're angry, I know you're hurting. But if you allow yourself to feel this way, you'll eventually lose. You must release what has gripped your heart for so long..."  
  
"I can't become a monster again!" he cried, clenching trembling fists in front of him. "I want to be normal. I want to live my life. I want to raise a family with you."  
  
"As do I, with every fiber of my being, but how can we ever raise children when we were the cause of a man's death? How would you tell your child, that you allowed a man to die, just because you remained angry at him? That you gave up on the entire human race, and their ability to change themselves? To become better than what they once were? I am able to make this choice to save Mr. Xanatos, for I can't live with a death on my conscience, and neither can you. If he dies, you will forever regret not helping him, and it will consume you slowly for the rest of your life." Maggie walked past him, collapsing to the bed, and crossing her arms, staring at an indistinct spot upon the plush carpeting. "I went to see him yesterday..."  
  
Derek looked up, where his deep ashen gray met Maggie's cinnamon gaze.  
  
"Surprised?" she inquired facetiously. "You shouldn't be, for unlike you, I have the ability to forgive. And when I walked through that doorway, I saw not the man who you think is a monster, but a frail being lying comatose in a hospital bed, who is probably hours away from death. I saw Fox and Alexander, a devoted mother and loving son, watching her husband, his father, wither away before their eyes. I think you should take a moment to visit the man you've condemned to a slow death, and then make your decision. I dare you, Derek Maza," she challenged him, standing up to meet his own rigid stance, "look into the eyes of a five year old child, who's daddy is dying, and then try to turn them down. I dare you..."  
  
Derek remained silent, his eyes softening to Maggie's heartfelt plea for both Xanatos' life, and his own.  
  
"I married a man with the appearance of a ferocious cat, with a heart to match, but please don't let that cat destroy Derek Maza, my husband, and the man whom I love more than anything in this world." She crossed his cheek with a swath of her fair skin, and sensually smoothed upon his mouth, a touch of her lips, and a flavor of fragrant cinnamon. A kiss from wife to husband, to convey what lay in her heart, and what she could not place into the proper words. "I hope you'll make the right choice." She reluctantly broke off her contact to his dark bronze, and slowly walked away from him.  
  
He watched as she left the room, yet not before flashing her eyes to him one last time. She swung the door closed with a softened creak, and left him bathed in darkness. He balled his fists, and swore he could feel the remnants of the electricity coursing through him. To forgive this man, he thought would kill him, yet to let him die, would ultimately take his soul. His wondrous wife, through adversity and pain, had found her path towards the light, and yet he had strayed, becoming lost in his torment, and a victim of his rage.  
  
Perhaps to take his wife's advice, and see firsthand this man who cursed him, and then restored him. Yet he was apprehensive to witness Xanatos' demise, though he had always wanted to see him like this in every twisted nightmare experienced, a fevered dream of ending his life, soaking his fur in cold perspiration. He was perhaps afraid to change his opinion, fearing he would feel sorry for him, and relinquish the anger he carried for so long.  
  
When filling his thoughts with his beautiful wife, made even more so with her return to a human existence, he discovered the spasms coursing through him were relenting their attack upon his body, and softening the hold upon his heart. "My kitten, are you right?" he asked of himself, awaiting the answer to emerge from the back of his skull. "Have I doomed this man to death for no reason but only my own anger? I just don't know anymore..."  
  
****************************************  
  
May 13th  
A darkened room, serving as the final resting place for one man, where the specter of death would always be near, hovering upon him with a frigid shroud, just waiting for the chance when his guard faltered, and his life slipped away. His soul would be taken, and his flesh would decay to dust. He wheezed with every rasp, as his lungs were forced to grab what air the could seize upon, feeding this decrepit body. The respirator had been silenced by Fox's own hand, for she had convinced herself his salvation would not come from the man who hated her husband, and she wanted him to die a noble death without the aid of any machine.  
  
He moved slowly to the bedside, and through the fading light of the setting sun, fusing into the horizon with a swirl of crimson hue and orange fire, did his form become sharpened against the stark white of the hospital walls. Derek Maza leaned over the fallen form of David Xanatos, as they met face to face for the first time since the spell was cast.  
  
"Mr. Xanatos," he growled in a voice of glacial frost, "in my dreams, this is what I wanted for you. You now feel what I felt, knowing there was nothing you could do to relieve yourself of the pain, of the absolute torment you are going through. Can you even hear me, Xanatos? Do you even know what's going on around you? Or are you too far gone within that little, scheming brain of yours?"  
  
Derek paced the length of the bedside, creating a blur of shadows dancing their way across the walls. "I want to know why, Xanatos...I want to know why you cursed us to be monsters." He whirled around to gaze back upon the dying billionaire, and wondering why he was spilling his anguish to a motionless coma victim. Possibly a burning need had arisen to ease himself of the burden carried on his shoulders for so long. "Why, Xanatos? Why did you do it? Was it greed that motivated you, or scientific intrigue? Or just to satisfy a disgusting fascination?!" He was growing furious as he spoke, perhaps because only silence fell upon his ears. "Wake up!!" he screamed, grabbing the limp form of Xanatos, and shaking him, enraged to the point where his teeth were bared, his eyes filled with an inferno threatening to burst in a pyre of flames. "You woke up to Claw, why won't you wake for me?! Are you scared?!! ANSWER ME!!!"  
  
His senses returned in a sudden flash, and he dropped the billionaire's still body back to the pillows and sheets, like a rag doll being abandoned by it's pubescent owner, left to rot upon the cold, hard ground. "I'm sorry..." he whispered, edging back from the bed, and faltering sluggishly about the room, as if attempting to find a direction to run, to leave this place, yet he stayed. "Why? Why did you curse us to be monsters? We had our whole lives ahead of us...and in one night, you took everything away..."  
  
He slumped to the chair alongside, and too sat motionless, pondering an absolute chaos of thoughts and fears streaking through his mind, built over years of his mutate existence. He lost himself within his mind, and focused on the rhythm of Xanatos' weakened breathing. He would never notice the room grow increasingly darker, as the sunlight faded, stretching across the floor, up the walls and the final vestiges of radiance slipping crosswise upon the ceiling to oblivion. Night had fallen, and as the heavens burst with the starlight, did he finally take heed of how much time had passed.  
  
He rose up slowly, deliberately, clearing his lungs and drawing in a strengthening breath, before turning to Xanatos' side once more. "A choice has come up," he started, his voice powerful, hearty with a braced asperity, "curing you or becoming mutates once more. It's almost funny...because I once depended on you to cure me, and now you have to depend on me...to save your life. Fate can be amusing sometimes, because it has a sick sense of humor. The others, Maggie, Sharon, even Claw, are ready to forgive you, and try the spell. But...I don't think I'm strong enough to make that choice..."  
  
With his last words uttered, Derek then noticed the change in his surroundings, a subtle cast of a slender shadow beyond him, and he whirled around to find Fox in the doorway. They met with their eyes, his defiant, hers anguished, with patches of scarlet marring the once wondrous, glistening emerald.  
  
"Derek." she greeted him apathetically, walking past him to take her place near her husband, pulling up the discarded chair, and throwing herself halfway onto the bed, grasping upon the dead hand of her husband.  
  
Amazed she never once spoke up about the choice to be made to save the man she loved, Derek remained behind her, and watched her lay silent, feeling the delicate pulse of her husband through his hand held to her cheek. "Aren't you going to plead for your husband's life?" he asked callously, possibly coming off more heartless than ever intended.  
  
"No." she whispered back. "I won't beg you, I won't plead with you. The choice is yours to make."  
  
"And if I refuse?"  
  
"Then my husband dies...and you go on with your life."  
  
Derek was utterly surprised, half expecting her to hold himself upon his feet imploring him to change his mind. "He cursed us, to be monsters for the rest of our lives. How can I justify helping to save someone who never would have lifted a finger to help me, if our places were reversed?"  
  
Fox ripped her eyes from Xanatos and to the young man standing over her. "He tried everything he could to help you. He's spent millions in trying to find a cure, trying to erase the mistake he made. And he would do the same if it were you were laying in this bed."  
  
"Bullshit!" Derek snarled. "It was no mistake. We were nothing more than test subjects to him!"  
  
"That's not true..." she gasped.  
  
"He doesn't care for anyone. This little good guy routine he continually plays, only hides his total lack of a heart!"  
  
"No! He isn't that man anymore!! He regrets everything he's ever done!!" Fox was screaming now, defending what goodness endured within her husband's very essence, though usually buried beneath the aristocratic personage and guileful businessman. "Even to this very day, he still has nightmares about you, and wakes up in the middle of the night, screaming out, drenched in his sweat. He wanders our home, even the castle, trying to get back to sleep, trying to silence the voices in his head. To free himself of those he wronged who always call to him, torture him, every minute of every day. I usually find him in Alex's room, watching him sleep. He says it's the most calming thing he can think of. He worries as Alex grows older, and discovers everything he's done, that he'll come to despise his father, because of his past."  
  
"He's lucky if that kid won't hate him," Derek snapped back, seemingly unfazed by Fox's tale, "because of everything he's done."  
  
"He's a good man. He's not the man you knew five years ago, he's changed! For the better!"  
  
"No he hasn't!! That bastard cursed us, left us to rot underground!!"  
  
"No, he's..."  
  
"He's a goddamned monster, and he...should...DIE!!!" His fury had erupted without any heed to whom he was speaking to, and he suddenly edged back. Derek swallowed his anger, as his spiteful scream had burst out, unintentionally releasing the feelings that never should have been set free, and as his clouded vision cleared, he found Fox staring at him in morbid disbelief. No, not at him. Derek slowly turned to follow her eyes to the doorway beyond, and discovered Alexander Xanatos just barely perched in the entrance, looking at him with a widened stare. "Jesus..." Derek whispered ruefully, "Alex...I..."  
  
"You're the monster!!" the small child screeched. "You should be dying, and not my daddy!!" The tears were spilling from his eyes, coating his cheeks in streams of an adolescent's anguish. "You're the monster!!"  
  
Derek attempted to move forward and apologize, yet with the first shaken footfall, the child tore himself from the doorway, and ran into the hall.  
  
Fox swept past Derek and chased after him, only reaching the fleeing boy near the elevator doors. She snatched him from the lighted buttons, and threw him into her arms, dropping to her knees and rocking him back and forth in a swaying motion. Alex was crying in erratic sobs, the wails of a broken-hearted child caressing upon the corridor walls, a pirouette of piercing echoes forcing their way to Derek's ears.  
  
He was standing on the opposite side of the hallway, near the door, watching Fox comfort her only son. A scene torn from his dreams, hoping that one day, he would have the chance to soothe a child, or many children, of his own blood, holding them close in a warm embrace. Either human or mutate, he would love them all the same. His pensive gaze found it's way back to the ailing billionaire, and he sighed in contempt of his actions, his words, his very hateful thoughts. "What have I become?" he whispered. "No...no longer...no more pain..." He looked back to where Fox was still holding Alex, speaking softly into his ears to calm him, and rubbing her hands through his wild, fiery hair. "Hey, Alex," he called to the child, and he peered through his mother's arms, "what's the favorite thing you like doing with your dad?"  
  
Alex wiped the tears away with his sleeve, and looked helplessly to his mother for consent to answer. She nodded, and with a trembling bottom lip, he answered back, "I like...playing baseball with him in the castle courtyard..."  
  
"Well, get your bat ready, boy, because I'm going to save your dad's life."  
  
****************************************  
  
May 14th  
The next night had come swiftly, as the plan proceeded to save David Xanatos' life was in the last stage, the proverbial moment of truth for both him, and the four restored humans standing by his side. Owen had placed the same device used weeks ago onto Xanatos' heaving chest, preparing for a transfer of life giving energy into his frail form.  
  
The clan remained outside the small contained hospital, peering in through the office window and the doorway. Fox was pressed against the glass, her rasped breaths creating haze of mist upon the crystalline barrier, watching as Owen secured the small machine to her husband's hospital gown. Alex has held in Goliath's massive arms, allowing the youth a perfect, unimpeded view of his father.  
  
And inside, were the chosen four, ready to give back their gift to he who first condemned them. They stood silently, all hoping against what odds were given to them that after all was done, they would remain their human selves. Maggie abided by her husband, her arms around him, and every so often, patting him softly on his chest to show her great affection to him, and her consent to his choice. The right choice. Sharon was held tightly in Claw's arms, the large man of Irish descent resting his face in the lush breadth of her hair, delving into the scent of strawberry shampoo. He and Derek would occasionally trade curt glances, sending a wry smirk each other's way, and hoping that they would see themselves as human after this ordeal was finally finished with.  
  
Dr. Pierce stood his place near the monitors, there to aid if needed, though feeling quite useless in the face of an enchantment about to be played out in front of his eyes.  
  
"Are you all ready?" asked Owen, looking back to the four restored humans, who simply nodded impassively. "Then shall we? The actual spell was spoken two weeks ago in the Labyrinth, so only the trigger word is needed." His eyes of shimmering crystal clicked to his employer, and then back to the human quartet. "Prepare yourselves. Redemption..."  
  
The trigger was spoken, and the room lit up in a blinding flare, swooping upon each form in the unearthly radiance erupting from the former mutates' chest, and flowing directly into Xanatos. His limp body jerked violently, and arched upwards, contorting with the surge of pure energy, feeding every blood vessel, every nerve, every cell in his body. His eyes tore open, the bleached mahogany swirling with a refreshing splash of color, and he screamed in pain, weakened lungs summoning the power to cry out, his anguished howl splitting open the still air.  
  
Fox attempted to run to her husband, but Elisa's arm, braced against her shoulder, held her back. She looked helplessly to the raven haired detective, who silently shook her head, and even without a single utterance, informed her through her hardened chocolate eyes, that she must remain here until the spell either worked, or failed.  
  
The restored humans slowly plunged to the floor, as the transference of what had flowed through their systems for two weeks was dying away. Held in Derek's trembling arms, Maggie looked to her hands, noticing a slight tingling incense the nerves in her fingers. She could not tell if it was merely an effect of the spell, or the emergence of talons. Yet even in the face of what could be an impending transformation to the monstrous form she once possessed and feared, she smiled, knowing that if her actions saved a man's life, she could look herself in the mirror from this day on, either as a human or mutate, and not be disgusted by the reflection.  
  
The energy flow sputtered and faded away, and the room returned to it's natural level of fluorescent lighting. Xanatos' voice gave out from his terrifying screaming, and he collapsed back against the sheets. The golden glow of his skin had returned, as had his muscular structure, yet he still lay silent within his bed. Then, his mouth fell open, and his lungs stole for every ounce of fresh air that could fill their healed state. He grasped both sides of the steel railing lining the hospital berth, and his eyes fluttering open to the brightest of light.  
  
Elisa released Fox, and she instantly came to her husband's side of a rush of wind, guiding both her hands to each side of his face, forcing him to stare to her and her alone. Their eyes met, in an instant of perfect clarity and devotion, her burning desire for any words became present in a silent plea of a verdant hued glare.  
  
He stared back, and steadied his breathing. Then came, the smirk. "...hello...Fox, my dear..." his voice was barely above a grated whisper, "...did you miss me?..."  
  
Her tears of joy slipped from her eyes and spattered upon his revitalized skin, a healthy shade of bronzed copper. "Don't get your hopes up..." she jested happily, as she lay upon him the gentlest of kisses, and threw herself onto his body. He barely managed to wrap his arms around her in such a weakened state, yet soon found the strength to hold her close, reveling in the presence of whom he almost lost.  
  
The bed shook and trembled with the pounce of a five year old boy, as Alex perched on his father's legs. "Hi, daddy!" he cried out, as he was accepted into his parent's passionate embrace.  
  
Elisa had dropped to the floor, peering to her dazed brother and his wife slumped into his arms. She inspected him close for any change, running her hands along his exposed skin and his backside, but found no indication of fur or talons, and definitely no sign of his leathery wings.  
  
Sharon woke in Claw's embrace and the Asian woman slumped wearily against him, and Claw clumsily pressed his forehead to hers.  
  
Derek stirred from his inebriated stupor and found a squalling form in his lap, and as he looked down, still attempting to clear the cobwebs from his mind, discovered a small, beautiful, blond woman clawing at his shirt to right herself. "Maggie?"  
  
"Derek..." She blinked her brown eyes, and stole her hand to graze across her husband's cheek. His human cheek. "We didn't turn back...does this mean?..." Her hopeful gaze found Owen Burnett, leaning down to examine the four humans, still placed upon the tiled floor.  
  
"The transformation should have been instantaneous, Mrs. Maza," he assured her in perhaps the most amiable voice he could produce, "it seems the mutated cells were purged from your body completely in the first transference. You are human now, and will be for the rest of your natural life."  
  
Maggie cheered, and hungrily fed upon Derek's lips in her excitement of the news, and they both fell to the floor, leaving an open view of the other human couple to Elisa's chocolate eyes. As Owen's statement finally sunk in, Sharon grabbed Claw by the neck and forced her lips to his, as they too descended slowly to the tiled surface.  
  
Elisa could do nothing and drop her jaw to their amorous greeting. "Whoa..."  
  
As they climbed off the floor, Derek fell silent, and the large smile he wore swiftly faded as he lay his gaze to Xanatos. He slowly walked over, and Fox immediately grabbed Alex away, allowing Derek to come literally face to face, fire-filled eyes clashing with a steel stare. He lowered his brow and curled his lips back, as if releasing a growl in seeing this man healthy once more. "You look like shit, rich man..." he whispered, jokingly.  
  
"I forgot how...ugly you were as a human..." Xanatos snapped back, his wily smirk growing ever larger.  
  
"You know, I still hate your guts."  
  
"As it should be."  
  
****************************************  
  
May 18th  
"Okay, Beth. I love you too. Bye. Bye, Beth. Goodbye! Hang up the phone, dirtbag!" Derek yelled out, as he threw to receiver back to it's cradle. "God, I hate her sometimes..."  
  
"How's Beth?" asked Elisa, knowing by the conversation she had just been witness to, the youngest Maza sibling was her customary troublesome self.  
  
"Annoying as usual," Derek drawled, "happy that I'm human, and psyched that I'm able to attend her graduation in June."  
  
Elisa caught the slight exasperation flooding his features. "What's wrong?"  
  
"The little, pig-tailed squirt who used to follow us around like a lost puppy, is graduating. She's getting on with her life...like we need to."  
  
"What do you mean?" Maggie asked, still wearing the massive smile she has not been able to lose for the past four days.  
  
"We need to get jobs, an apartment, furniture..."  
  
"Well, you can always go back to the force," replied Elisa, perched on the bed near her sister-in-law, and watching her brother begin to pace back and forth, a habit most likely shared by all her blood family, "when captain Chavez dropped by yesterday, she said she could get you your old job back."  
  
"Eh, the force..." Derek sounded less than enthusiastic at his sister's comment, having traveled that road before. "I don't know, but whatever we do, I'm definitely not going back to the Labyrinth."  
  
"Well, I agree," said Maggie quietly, yet raising a single finger to indicate a flaw in her husband's plan, "but what about...you know? Her..."   
  
"Oh god, I forgot about her..."  
  
"Oh, she's not a problem." Elisa cut in, resting a slender hand to Maggie's shoulder. "The real question is, what about all the homeless who depend on you guys for their protection, and to help clothe and feed them?"  
  
Derek stared at his sister, and then broke out in an ever swelling grin, rubbing his hands together as if a child discovering the whereabouts of the ever elusive cookie jar. "I don't think they're a problem either, especially when you have the world's richest man at your disposal..."  
  
****************************************  
  
May 23rd  
"No, no, no, the kitchen and dining area have to be downstairs, as the living areas will be contained to the entire top floor."  
  
"The generators, fitness gym and storage rooms cannot be below ground, so the we must reduce the number of private rooms, to allow for the kitchen, and the dining area."  
  
"Do you know how many people are living in the labyrinth?" Derek yelled curtly to the bedridden billionaire, who was almost completely covered with a disordered collection of blueprints piled haphazardly on his legs. "We need as much room as possible for every single person down there."  
  
"This isn't a hotel," Xanatos fought back, slapping a hand to another blue tinted page, scrawled with the thin dark lines of a building within the process of being built, and with every change argued for by the younger man, was increasingly becoming more expensive by the millions, "you'll be helping all those living down there to find jobs and their own places to live."  
  
"And right now, we have almost six hundred people down there, who need to get out from underground!"  
  
"Fine." Xanatos reached over to his nightstand, brushed away the accumulation of magazines, company reports and even more blueprints to find his cellphone buried beneath. He flipped open the plastic cover, dialed a number known only to him, and waited for an answer. "Mr. Williams? David Xanatos. I need to increase the Xanatos Shelter complex from two floors, to five. Please draw up some new plans and I will call on you within the week. Thank you." He flipped the phone away from him and stared back to a gaping Derek Maza. "Is that better suited to your needs?"  
  
Derek bit his bottom lip, suppressing a growing annoyance, having been built upon since this informal meeting was started an hour ago. "Dammit!" he yelled in utter frustration. "You know, you're making it really hard for me to hate you, Xanatos."  
  
"He kind of grows on you, doesn't he?" Elisa called out from afar, seated alongside Maggie on the opposite wall of the hospital room.  
  
"Yeah," Derek whispered back, "like fungus..."  
  
"So you don't mind living in this new shelter?" Maggie inquired coyly, batting her lashes, and seeing the edges of a grin begin to form on her husband's lips, even with his head turned mostly from her view.  
  
"Are you kidding, kitten?" Derek whirled around to his wife, pointing out the top floor blueprints, indicating a large corner chamber with his finger. "You should see our bedroom." he exclaimed excitedly.  
  
"It better have a big bathroom, Derek, and an even bigger tub."  
  
"Don't worry, Mrs. Maza," Xanatos cut through, flashing his smirk to at least one who had accepted him for his worth, "I intend to take care of the new administrators of the Xanatos Shelter."  
  
"There's just one last thing, people," Elisa announced, straightening up in the soft bench, "what to do about Delilah."  
  
The others gave despairing looks to one another, still pondering on the last Labyrinth dweller to be dealt with. A massive form moved swiftly from the shadows of the farthest corner, stepping into the light. Shadow approached closer to Elisa's side, having been summoned here to this room by the raven haired detective, and given no answer why his presence was required, until now. "I see no problem," he answered, much to Elisa's hopeful thinking and her growing smile, "she'll live with us, in the castle."  
  
"I was hoping you would say that." Elisa got up and sauntered to the closed door, grabbing the handle and looking back to Shadow's cocked brow ridge. "And so was someone else..."  
  
With a quick wrench, the door was swung open, and a slender shape fell through, dropping to the floor with a thud. Delilah quickly scrambled to her feet, a burning shade of dark red inflaming her cheeks, obviously embarrassed of her eavesdropping being discovered.  
  
"So, Delilah," Elisa started, "do you want to move in with us?"  
  
The young clone formed a beaming smile, and quickly skipped to Shadow's side, wrapping around his arm. "Oh yes. I can live in Shadow's room."  
  
"Uh...uh...you would not like it..." Shadow stammered, as his blossom curled around his muscular appendage with the grace and supple flexibility of a snake preparing to bite. "It is...too small, perhaps another room in the castle would...be more to your liking..." He pushed away from her and hurriedly slipped from the room, with Delilah excitedly chasing after him.  
  
"But, Shadow," she whined playfully, as if a small child, "I can put my porcelain figure collection in between your weapons."  
  
"No..."  
  
"Pleeeease?"  
  
"NO!!!" he continued arguing, even within the small, steel cab of the elevator.  
  
Elisa poked her head out the door of the hospital room, and watched as her cloned daughter begged and pleaded with her dark love, and even as the doors slid closed, still continued her efforts to share his private tower. "Heh heh heh, good luck, Shadow..."  
  
****************************************  
  
May 24th  
Where the dead lay buried, a peaceful rest for a life deserving of their share of repose, calmness, and contentment. A bitter wind flowed through, though carrying the warmth of the Summer sun, deflecting from stone to stone, and enfolding itself about the two forms moving slowly upon the winding cement pathways.  
  
Sharon and Claw were searching the singular markers of brilliant ivory and sullen gray, an entire life contained within each simple carving of thousands of monikers on granite surfaces. They walked slowly, cautiously, as if attempting to remain quiet in this holy place, and when the larger man came to a quick halt, Sharon snapped her gaze around to where he had left her, and was now kneeling in front of a gravestone.  
  
Claw placed the bouquet of flowers delicately to the slight mound of the soft earth, layered with an emerald coating of lush grass. "I'm sorry," he whispered, finding his words difficult to form, to find what excuses he could give in taking a life, "I am so sorry...I should have stopped myself, before you...before..."  
  
"It wasn't your fault, Thomas." said Sharon, standing directly behind him, and casting a distorted shadow over the larger man.  
  
"He had family, Sharon. Brothers, a sister, parents who loved him..."  
  
"And they were helped in the time of his death. By their friends and family. By Xanatos. He supported them financially, offered psychiatric help, counseling sessions. I guess it was his way of saying he was sorry for the death he helped to take." She curled around him, placing the warmth of her hands to his, kneading the tense muscles and tenderly rubbing her nails about his palms. "You can't beat yourself up over this. You have been given a second chance, and you shouldn't waste it, because of a mistake that was not even your fault."  
  
Claw peered solemnly to the small woman, and cast his forest-tinted gaze to the marker once more. He dragged thick fingers about the polished stone, an austere quality to his dark eyes, a dread perhaps of forcing his way back into the society taken from him. "I only hope I can live a life of helping those less fortunate," he said, hoping his voice would carry to the man whose life was now only represented by the cold guise of a gravestone, "to somehow make up for my sin."  
  
"You can start over, Thomas. We can start over...together. But only if you take the first step." Sharon stood up, dusted off the slight remnants of grass of soil from her jacket and pants, and started her way down the path. Claw looked back at her and then to the stone. "You can't stay here anymore. You have to go on."  
  
Claw rose up, possessing a towering stature even in his human form that Sharon still had trouble getting used to. He tentatively grasped onto the hand of a blanched ivory complexion, with skin of fine porcelain, placed before him, and smiled weakly to the Asian woman, answering in an absence of words, and a full heart.  
  
"Great!" she chirped cheerfully. "I want to take you to my favorite café, and hear more about Mr. Thomas O'Reilly."  
  
"I must warn you, I...haven't talked for a long time. I may go on for a while."  
  
"I hope so. I'm a great listener." She pulled his hand with an intensity, enough so that he thought he might pitch too far and fall on top of her. He quickened his pace to catch up with her rapid stride, and they left the cemetery into the streets of Manhattan, hand in hand, two lives this day starting as one.  
  
****************************************  
  
May 25th  
He crept in slowly, as fast as his weak body would allow, padding along in his bare feet and hospital gown, with his monogrammed robe to protect his still amending form from any cold drafts. He approached his office chair and rubbed a hand across the enticing leather. He slumped back into his sable-colored throne, and tipped his head back, listening only to the sound of his steady breaths being released into the still air of his office, the very head of operations of a global empire having almost lost it's king.  
  
"What are you doing in here?" an angered female voice called out from his side. "You should be resting in bed."  
  
Xanatos peered over the leather contoured frame of his chair, and found a scowling Maggie Maza slowly closing in on him. "I only wanted out of that damned hospital room. Besides, I wanted to see my birthday gift from Elisa and Goliath." he answered succinctly, turning to see the large, wooden, octagonal-shaped, antique clock hanging behind him on the wall.  
  
"My wife is right, rich man," came another voice, "you should be resting. It would be a shame if some thing were to...'happen' to you."  
  
Xanatos merely cocked a brow to Derek's ill-tempered joke, and hid his sneer behind an assemblage of fingers. "Indeed."  
  
"What are you doing here, Derek?" asked Maggie accusingly.  
  
"Just wanted to give Xanatos here his birthday gift..." He reached into the plastic bag he had carried in, and pulled out three distinct stuffed figures, and lined them up on the edge of his desk. Maggie formed an injured look at her husband's choice of gifts, when her eye grazed upon the three animals staring Xanatos in the face. A small panther, lion, and tiger. "Now before you yell at me for a cruel joke," Derek cut through before Maggie did indeed have the chance to pull him aside, "these are simply reminders, of a past that should be left behind, and a better future for all of us."  
  
"Does this mean I am forgiven?" Xanatos inquired, concealing possibly an expectation of this man's change of heart.  
  
Derek tilted his head, and roamed his eyes along the breadth of the desk. He smiled when grazing across a glimmer of sharpened steel. He grabbed the scissors from the marble surface, and practically threw them into Xanatos' face. "Cut off that damned ponytail, and I'll consider it."  
  
Xanatos never hesitated in his reach for the cutting implement, and snatched them before a reaction could occur to the young man with the now empty palm. The billionaire grabbed the tail resting upon his neck and fed the long strands of mahogany to the voracious blades of steel. With a single swipe, the hair was savagely cut through, and Xanatos then handed back both the scissors and the severed tail to the astonished former mutate.  
  
"Holy shit...I was...I was only kidding." Derek gasped, with Maggie crossing her arms and grinning wildly.  
  
"I am not."  
  
Derek looked back to the tail held in his hand, still held together with the small rubber strap. "Eeeeww." he groaned, instantly dropping the hair to the desk. "I still hate you." he muttered.  
  
Xanatos released a small chortle, seeing Maggie slapping him playfully across the shoulder. "The world would be in a very sad state of affairs indeed, if any of the Maza family actually liked me."  
  
****************************************  
  
May 26th  
She heaved the last of her bags onto her new bed, and collapsed onto the freshly made sheets and quilt, relishing the cleansed aroma of detergent and Spring blossoms. Delilah took the moment to admire her new quarters, her cinnamon eyes darting to every corner, and the furniture collected against the walls. It was a smaller room in the castle, situated near Elisa and Goliath's grand bedroom in the main hall, yet still much larger than her chambers in the Labyrinth had ever been.  
  
A tinge of sadness afflicted upon her heart, for perhaps one of the most difficult tasks she had ever had to accomplish was leaving her only home of the past six years, with an existence, albeit shorter than most, full of great memories, especially those of her cherished brothers. Yet she knew her reason for moving away was a cause for celebration, as her friends were finally set free from their bane of mutated genes, and able to live their lives above ground, in the embrace of civilization and the warming rays of the sun itself.  
  
A rustle of leather and the taming of the currents allowed a sound to drift through the open window. She rushed to the sill of the large bay window, and peered out, to find a dark form settling itself on a far turret. It was Shadow, having returned to his chambers, and now standing aloft the cornice structure, as if daring even the most powerful of winds to attempt to knock him from his perch.  
  
She collapsed on the frame and dropped her head onto her crossed arms. She sighed, watching him stand defiantly, his long braid being tossed in the playful hands of the light Summer tempest. Her heart was singing for her dark love, and what fear of their relationship, the unknowns in taking the next logical steps in both devotion and desire, had whisked away, similar to a scented steam from a fresh cup of tea.  
  
She felt she was no longer afraid. No longer fearful of showing to her warrior of just how much she loved him, treasured his company, and valued his powerful spirit like the purest of gold.  
  
She hopped back to her bed in a mad dash, rummaged around in one of the suitcases with all her possessions collected over the last few years, and when her talons graced upon a silken material, she smiled, and pulled out the fabric in her hands. A sheer, ivory chemise was liberated, and glistened even in the soft light of the chandelier. It was a gift from Elisa, after her first date with Shadow, and perhaps only meant as a joke. Satiny, and partially transparent, she held the thin lingerie up to the light, and smiled maliciously. "Very soon, Shadow," she whispered, in an unusually husky tone, "you'll see this in all it's glory. But how do you seduce the perfect warrior?" 


End file.
